The Cherokee - History

Formally opened to tenants on January 5, 1912, as the East River
Homes, this unique group of four interconnected six-story buildings in
mid-Manhattan was erected as a model tenement to house poor working
class families with one of more tuberculosis-infected members. It was
conceived by Dr. Henry L. Shively, head of the tuberculosis clinic at
Presbyterian Hospital; funded by Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt
Sr. (née Anne Harriman); and designed by Henry Atterbury Smith.

Smith incorporated a number of ingenious features to make the
buildings as healthful, sanitary, safe, and comfortable as
possible. He paid particular attention to providing abundant light and
air, two basic necessities most beneficial to tuberculosis
sufferers. The ample funds allocated also allowed him to indulge in
architectural design and detailing that was unprecedented in
philanthropic housing.

Several parts of the complex – most notably the richly-tiled
passageways connecting the interior courts with the streets, the open
stairways, and the tiles on the underside of the projecting balconies
– were executed by the Guastavino Fireproof Construction Company; a
remarkable enterprise whose outstanding creations grace many of New
York City’s finest edifices, among them the Great Hall on Ellis
Island, the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Terminal, and St. Paul’s
Chapel at Columbia University.

From the very beginning Mrs. Vanderbilt’s project was closely followed
by the press not only in New York City but overseas as well. Great
Britain’s prestigious medical journal The Lancet commented in its
April 3, 1909, issue: “Her object is to show, by an experiment on a
large scale, that such accommodations may be constructed and managed
to save human lives … Should she succeed in demonstrating this her
example will, no doubt, be followed …” The New York Times,
December 1, 1912, declared: “It is possible that nowhere in the world
is there a more comfortable, sanitary, and beautiful tenement than
Mr. Vanderbilt’s East River homes.” The complex also garnered
enthusiastic endorsement from housing reformers, social activists, and
the medical community.

Architecture and Building, February 1912, presented a wealth of
details on the finished structures along with several excellent
photographs. The author of the article was particularly impressed by
the roofs, noting that they have been made “as attractive and
comfortable as possible,” and that they not only “command an excellent
view of the East River and Long Island,” but also afford “an ideal
resting place in the open air for tubercular patients.” When the New
York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects bestowed its
awards for apartment buildings having the best exterior design for the
year 1911, it received the medal in the class of apartment houses of
six stories or less. According to Richard Plunz’s monumental A History
of Housing in New York (1990), “East River Homes was by any standard
the most advanced model tenement to be built in New York City up to
1912, and quite possibly since.”

Two months after opening the buildings became the site of the Home
Hospital, an ambitious long-term study sponsored by the Association
for Improving the Condition of the Poor (AICP), one of New York’s
oldest and most influential charity organizations. The project sought
to demonstrate that by housing a patient having a virulent case of
tuberculosis and his family in a salubrious home environment under
medical supervision would not only result in recovery but, at the same
time, keep the family intact and ensure that the disease would not
spread to healthy individuals.

One section of the complex was leased and converted into a home
hospital to accommodate selected families and medical staff, and in
November of the following year an additional section was procured and
occupied. The program was remarkably successful; the AICP reported at
the end of the first year that “the results obtained with the adult
patients compared very favorably with those of the best sanatoria.”

The charitable trust governing the East River Homes was dissolved in
1923 and the buildings were sold to the City and Suburban Homes
Company for rental apartments the following year. In the 1930s the
pergolas and recreational facilities on the roof were removed,
kitchens were relocated from the living rooms, and the bedrooms were
enlarged by reducing the total number of rooms on each floor.

On July 9, 1985, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission
– citing the complex’s prominent role in the fight against
tuberculosis as well as its distinctive architectural features –
designated it as an official landmark. In 1986, it was renamed the
Cherokee Apartments and converted to cooperative ownership status.

The Cherokee Apartments is mentioned in numerous books about New York
City’s architecture and places of interest. For example, Paul
Goldberger wrote in his The City Observed: New York (1979):
“At the Cherokee one senses an order an a place for each
resident that makes him, as he stands at his balcony or crosses
through the courtyard, feel unique.” Francis
Morrone’s The Architectural Guidebook to New York City
(1994) opines that “these buildings impart to 77th Street and
Cherokee Place a powerful. brooding, romantic sense of
enclosure.” On NYREALTY.COM’s list of the “Top Ten
Balconies, East Side,” the Cherokee ranks second, superseded
only by the Trump Plaza.

Since becoming a co-op the complex has been undergoing extensive
renovation and restoration, both externally and internally. In January
1991 the Cherokee Apartments was one of the sites honored with an
award by the Friends of the Upper East Side, a non-profit preservation
organization, “for the exemplary care which through careful
restoration brought back the intrinsic charm of this group of
thoughtfully designed buildings.”

Due to its wonderful architectural characteristics, the complex has
attracted several moviemakers over the years. In November 2003 the
premises hosted the cast and crew of Stay, a film directed by Marc
Forster and starring Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts. More recently,
director Robert De Niro shot several scenes for his The Good Shepherd,
featuring Angelina Jolie and Matt Damon. However, all of this footage
wound up on the cutting room floor.